The operation of a mobile communication network requires a powerful operation support system which provides comprehensive management. The operation support system of a communication network primarily includes: a billing system, a network monitoring and management system, and a customer management system. The network monitoring and management system monitors and analyzes the operation state of the network in real time, discovers, locates and handles various faults in the network, and adjusts the network configuration to meet the requirements of different users. A mobile communication network needs to be capable of flexible and dynamic adjustment due to mobility of users.
The dynamic adjustment of a network is based on performance statistics, especially the network-related Key Performance Identification (KPI) data. Such data reflects the current operation states (overloaded, idle) of the components of the network. Through analysis on such data, the overall operation conditions of the network are grasped, and the network configuration can be optimized accurately.
The network operation support management system in the prior art is hierarchical, where the Network Management System (NMS) may be made up of multiple specialized systems such as integrated fault management system, integrated performance management system, and integrated resource management system. Each NMS manages multiple peer EMSs. Each EMS manages multiple Managed Elements (MEs). The EMS collects performance statistics from each ME, aggregates the performance statistics and reports them to the NMS. The NMS analyzes the statistics comprehensively to discover possible problems of the network and perform the corresponding operations.
FIG. 1 shows a management hierarchy of a mobile communication network in the prior art. The NMS in FIG. 1 manages only two EMSs (EMS1 and EMS2). In practice, an NMS may manage multiple EMSs.
Cells are the most important basic network elements in a mobile communication network, and important MEs in the EMS. Important parameters such as transmitting power, transmitting radius, and transmitting angle of the cell need to be optimized. Such optimization brings direct impact on the communication quality of the users covered by the cell and the users covered by the neighboring cells. For example, after the transmitting power of a cell is increased, the users covered by the neighboring cells are easier to hand over to this cell. Therefore, before the transmitting power of a cell is increased, it is necessary to consider whether the effect of the handover is desired, or consider whether the transmitting power of the neighboring cells needs also to be adjusted.
If a cell and its neighboring cells are managed by the same EMS, most mobile communication networks in the prior art can analyze the cell data within the EMS, adjust the cell parameters, and optimize the cell configuration. In the prior art, if two or more neighboring cells are managed by different EMSs, namely, if two or more cells are Border Objects (BOs) of different EMSs, each EMS collects the performance statistics of the managed BOs and then reports them to the upper-layer NMS. The performance statistics of all the relevant BOs are analyzed within the upper-layer NMS. The upper-layer NMS delivers the configuration adjustment scheme of each BO to the corresponding EMS, and the EMS adjusts the configuration of BOs of this EMS.
In the process of implementing the present disclosure, the inventor finds at least the following technical defects in the prior art:
In the prior art, the mobile communication network adjusts and optimizes the BOs in a complicated process which includes: The EMS collects data, the relevant EMSs report the data to the NMS, the NMS analyzes the data, and the NMS delivers optimization commands to the relevant EMSs according to the analysis results and monitors the optimization effect. Consequently, the process of optimizing the BO is long, the mobile communication network is unable to respond to some abrupt events, or adjust the network performance quickly, or finish network optimization in time, which brings a bottleneck of further enhancing the network Quality of Service (QoS).